


Those Who Sink, Swim

by whimsical_ramblings



Category: One Piece
Genre: Gen, Nakamaship, hints of Chopper/Zoro and Sanji/Zoro nakamaship as well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-01
Updated: 2015-05-01
Packaged: 2018-03-26 16:28:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3857329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whimsical_ramblings/pseuds/whimsical_ramblings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Let it never be said that something as trivial as a broken arm could stop Zoro from saving his captain from drowning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Those Who Sink, Swim

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a prompt that read something along the lines of "So what if my arm's broken? I'm doing it anyway".

Something in Zoro’s arm gave way as he was slammed into a nearby wall. His grip on Shusui loosened, the bones in his right arm snapping and popping, but he didn’t drop the sword. His jaw clenched painfully around Wadou’s hilt as the massive marine he was fighting continued to bear down on him, until Zoro felt as though his arm might rip completely free from his shoulder.

They’d been forced to board a marine ship when it’d opened fire on the Sunny, and although they were largely outnumbered, Zoro, Luffy, Sanji, and Franky had managed to take out the majority of them on their own. It wasn’t until one of Luffy’s attacks had dangerously rocked the ship that Zoro momentarily lost his footing, leaving him vulnerable just long enough for a marine double his size to ram into him. His arm, bent at an unnatural angle under the force of the marine’s shoulder, broke easily against the steel walls of the ship.

With a growl, Zoro swung his good arm in a wide arc and cut the marine down just in time to see Luffy teetering near the edge of the deck. Usopp was firing shots from the rail of the Sunny, the bullets exploding in concussive bursts that hit their targets with ease, but when a particularly strong explosion sent a group of marines flying into the ocean, Luffy went with them. Zoro could see one of Luffy’s rubber arms shooting out as he tried desperately to grab ahold of anything that might slow his descent, but the steel panels that made up the side of the ship were unforgiving, and they lacked any noticeable edges. His back hit the rocky sea with a splash, and in a few short seconds, the waves swallowed him whole.

“Luffy!” Usopp cried out. His scream drew Sanji’s attention, who made to jump in after their captain, but Zoro was already ahead of him, shoving his swords into Sanji’s confused hands as he ran for the edge of the ship.

“Zoro, your arm!” Sanji yelled as he numbly grasped the swords that Zoro had practically thrown at him.

“Don’t care,” Zoro muttered, and before Sanji could stop him, he dove in after Luffy. He was dimly aware of several voices calling out to him, of Sanji’s nimble fingers brushing against the back of his shirt in an attempt to grab him, but it didn’t matter. None of it mattered. What did matter was the fact that Luffy was essentially a sinking hammer in the water, and the longer Zoro waited, the further he sank.

Zoro broke through the ocean’s surface and immediately felt his muscles seize up. They weren’t terribly far from a winter island at the peak of its season, and the water was colder than he expected. It sent bolts of searing pain through his broken arm, which was now almost entirely useless to him. Still, he used his remaining limbs to propel himself through the water, his keen eyes searching for any sign of his captain. The sea was particularly rough today from the ongoing battle that still raged between their ship and the marine vessel, and it was difficult for Zoro to see with the underwater currents tugging at him from every direction. His arm floated lifelessly at his side while he swam, still throbbing with white-hot pain, and the low temperature of the water made him feel slow, sluggish, as if he were swimming through glue.

Eventually his eyes caught the fluttering movement of Luffy’s bright red vest on his left side, and he kicked forward until he was able to grab ahold of him. He wrapped his arm protectively around him as the ocean continued to bat them around without mercy, and Zoro soon realized that with his good arm holding onto Luffy, he had nothing but his legs to help him swim. He tried stretching his broken arm out in front of him, but it refused to move, and something told him his fight with the marine had dislocated it. Zoro could have dealt with the pain, and even with the consequences of over-straining his broken limb if it meant saving Luffy’s life, but no matter how hard he willed his arm to move, it remained completely lifeless.

Zoro felt the two of them sinking deeper, the water getting colder. He briefly wondered if he could grab onto Luffy’s vest with his teeth in order to free up his other arm, but discarded the idea. Luffy’s added weight would still drag them down, and all Zoro would’ve managed to do is waste more of his energy. It was beginning to dawn on him that, without both of his arms, there was nothing he could do to get them to the surface.

Staring up at the edge of the water as it continued to drift further and further away from them, Zoro grit his teeth and kicked his legs as hard as he could. Impossible or no, he wasn’t going to let the two of them die without a fight. Zoro’s muscles burned as he kicked, and he found himself wishing for a small moment that he had the same leg strength their cook possessed. As it was, the strongest parts of him were currently out of commission, and as hard as he tried, he and Luffy still continued to sink. The pressure of the water was increasing, becoming heavier, until Zoro thought his lungs might collapse. A wave of calm washed over him and drove away the determination he’d had only seconds earlier to reach the surface, eyelids drooping, muscles going lax.

_That’s not good. Guess I really am drowning,_ Zoro thought distantly. _I wonder if this is how Luffy feels every time he gets kicked overboard._

Something in the back of his mind screamed at him to keep fighting, to keep kicking, to at the very least get his captain to safety. That was his job, wasn’t it? To keep everyone safe if he could help it, to save them when they needed saving.

_Shit,_ he thought. _Who the hell’s gonna save me?_

His vision was starting to go dark, but he still clung to Luffy’s vest with the little strength he had left, his only remaining anchor as his consciousness started to slip away. He could barely make out a dark figure moving towards them that hadn’t been there before, backlit by the rays of the sun, and he recalled an old story he’d heard once about a person’s dead relatives serving as their guide to the afterlife once they died. Zoro couldn’t remember most of his family, but maybe Kuina would come for him. She’d be so pissed at him for dying in such a stupid way, for dying before he could see her dream to the end. Still, it’d be nice to see her again.

A harsh hand grabbed his broken arm, yanking him forward, and he opened his mouth involuntarily to gasp only to draw in a lungful of salt water. Whoever had grabbed him was pulling him desperately towards the surface, kicking with a strength that bordered on fishman-levels of ferocity. His good arm still held onto Luffy securely, his hand clinging to the material of his vest, and Zoro found himself gripping it even tighter as they neared the surface.

When they finally broke through the water and into the open air, Zoro instinctively took a deep breath, only to choke on the fluid in his lungs. His chest and throat burned, his limbs ached, and his broken arm felt boneless, as though everything holding it together had been ripped apart. He could hear familiar voices as he was pushed through the waves by his rescuer, followed by more shouting, more noise, all of it sounding a million miles away. When he finally blacked out, he swore he could feel the soft grass of the Sunny’s deck beneath his back.

***

The world came into focus again slowly for Zoro. Words faded in and out as people spoke around him, and he was aware of someone splinting his arm. The pain from earlier was dulled greatly, which told him that Chopper had probably given him something that would leave him fuzzy and dazed for hours. He turned his head to the side and could make out the walls of the infirmary through his watery vision, Chopper carefully applying bandages to his arm in heavy point form. Everything seemed to swim and wobble in front of him, and it left Zoro wondering if he was still underwater.

He must have made some noise he was unaware of, or shifted under Chopper’s hands, because the doctor’s head turned suddenly to look at him, securing the bandages in place and grabbing a tiny light from somewhere Zoro couldn’t see. He grabbed Zoro by the chin and proceeded to shine the light into his eyes, tightening his grip when Zoro tried to jerk away from him.

“I’m sorry Zoro, but please try to hold still for just a moment,” he said.

“What’re you doing?” Zoro groaned, feeling his pupils dilate uncomfortably.

“Checking for brain damage, most likely,” a new voice said, one Zoro recognized as their cook’s. “Not that there’s much up there for you to lose.”

“Sanji, what have I said about smoking in the infirmary!” Chopper scolded. Zoro’s eyes flickered toward the door to see Sanji standing in the threshold taking a drag from his cigarette. When he exhaled, he blew the smoke out into the hallway.

“You were under the water for a few minutes, idiot,” Sanji continued. “Any longer and I would have been pulling corpses to the Sunny.”

Zoro tried to snarl at him, unable to form enough words to argue appropriately with the cook, but the medicine Chopper had given him made it difficult to tell if he’d succeeded or not.

“‘s Luffy okay?” he asked instead.

“Luffy’s fine,” Chopper assured him. “He coughed up only slightly more water than you did once Sanji brought the two of you aboard, but you know how he is. He tends to bounce back like...well, like rubber I guess.”

Zoro nodded. “Swords?”

Sanji scoffed. “You wanna try a ‘Thanks for saving my ass Sanji’ first? Maybe you can add a ‘sorry for being a moron and almost drowning’ with it?”

Zoro scowled and tried to sit up, only to have Chopper push him back down.

“Sanji, please,” Chopper warned, then turned back to Zoro. “They’re in the cabin, safe and sound. Don’t worry.”

Zoro let out a sigh of relief at that, and slumped back onto the bed.

“Whatever,” Sanji shrugged, turning to leave. “Try not to kill any of the precious few brain cells you have left, stupid moss head.”

“Shit cook,” Zoro threw back at him weakly, and Sanji waved the insult away as he left.

Chopper shook his head.  “Now that that’s out of the way…”

Zoro started as one of Chopper’s hands came down to cuff him on the side of the head.

“Agh, Chopper, what the hell?!”

“What were you thinking!” Chopper yelled, transforming back into his smaller, brain point form, which was almost more intimidating. “You could have died! Luffy could have died! And you’ve nearly torn your arm to shreds! You’re lucky I could even reset the bones!”

Zoro rubbed at the spot on his head where Chopper had hit him. The blow hadn’t hurt at all; Chopper would never put a patient’s health in jeopardy. But his mind had been slowed enough by the drugs that it hurt his pride to know he hadn’t seen it coming.

“I can still use the arm though, right?” Zoro asked tentatively.

“Well, yes-” Chopper admitted.

“And Luffy’s alright?”

“Yes, but-”

Zoro smirked. “Then everything’s fine. No harm done.”

Chopper blinked. “No harm…? No harm done?! You almost died!”

“But I didn’t,” Zoro said simply.

Huffing, Chopper struggled to find the appropriate words to get through Zoro’s head, but eventually gave up.

“Fine,” he conceded. “You’re right. You didn’t die. But I’m confining you to bedrest for at least a day, two if you don’t cooperate.”

Zoro’s smirk immediately fell. “But Chopper-”

“No buts!” the little reindeer said, hopping down from his stool. “I’m going to tell the others you’re alright. Try to get some sleep, and no getting out of bed while I’m gone!”

Zoro laid back and offered the doctor a lazy, mock salute. Once Chopper had left, he turned his head to look at his injured arm, picking at the bandages absentmindedly.

“No messing with your bandages either!” Chopper’s muffled voice called through the door.

Zoro rolled his eyes.

***

The next morning, Chopper gave him official permission to leave the infirmary, declaring that the bones in his arm had properly set and were on their way to healing, although he’d been barred from any exercise that required stress on his upper body. Zoro hadn’t been happy with the verdict, but once Chopper explained that any extra strain on his arm might prevent him from properly using his swords again, he relented. His arm was splinted and placed in a sling, which itched at Zoro’s neck and got in his way more often than not, but Chopper had eyes like a hawk, and he didn’t dare remove it.

When Luffy saw him emerge onto the deck the following day, he bounded towards him without warning, latching onto his good side and nearly toppling them both to the ground.

“Zoro, you’re free!” he said. Zoro smiled.

“Yeah, I guess so,” he agreed. Luffy smiled back, then peered down into the sling encasing his arm.

“Oi, Zoro,” he said. “Does it hurt?”

Zoro shrugged. “Not so much anymore.”

“Good!” Luffy said, then poked gently at the bandages. “Can I sign it?”

Zoro raised an eyebrow. “There’s no cast, Luffy. Not yet, anyways.”

“Awww,” Luffy frowned, deflating a little. “Oh well.”

There was a moment of silence between them, then Luffy pulled Zoro into a more authentic hug, minding his broken arm as he squeezed him tightly.

“Thanks for jumping in after me, Zoro,” he said genuinely.

Zoro nodded, returning the hug the best he could with only one arm. “Any time captain.”

Luffy gave him one last squeeze, smiling brightly, then pulled away.

“It was a good try, after all, even if you did do a pretty bad job of it,” he said.

“Oi!” Zoro yelled. He grabbed for Luffy when his captain made a break for the other side of the deck, but Luffy narrowly avoided his grasp, laughing as Zoro chased after him.


End file.
